Forum Discussion
Ability to Pause the Timeline with Only Then-Visible Elements Showing
The ability to be able to test-play the Storyline timeline without previewing is fantastic! The issue I run into is when I have a long timeline with lots of text that comes and goes, sometimes I need to make custom rectangles to show or hide elements whilst keeping spacing intact.
When playing the timeline, I can preview just fine. Pausing it to add elements on an as-needed basis, however, ends up in a big jumbled mess of EVERYTHING that is ever on that slide's timeline appearing all at once.
Please add the ability to pause with only then-visible elements showing. This would make workflows much faster for fine-tuning visible elements without having to go through and turn off 21 separate rectangles and then turn them on, then turn them off again before turning them on again (you get the idea.)
Hi, ErinShaw-ccb1f9 : There's already a way to show only the elements that would be visible at a given point in the timeline. It's the Timeline Visualization function.
This first screenshot is an example with Timeline Visualization off. It shows a slide with 3 shapes. The shapes are all in the lower part of the slide. As the timeline shows, each shape would appear separately when the slide is played. But, during editing, the shapes overlap. And, yeah, that's a pain.
Now here's a screenshot of that same slide with Timeline Visualization on. The playhead is at the 4-second point. At that time, only the 1st shape is visible when the slide is previewed/published. And with Timeline Visualization on, that's the only shape that's visible in edit mode.
Note: This is a super-handy feature. Be careful, though. If you don't realize that Timeline Visualization is on, it's easy to panic about why some objects aren't showing, even though their eye-icons indicate they aren't hidden. (A variation of "Why can't I see my objects on the slide?" has been asked more than once in the discussion area.)
2 Replies
Hi, ErinShaw-ccb1f9 : There's already a way to show only the elements that would be visible at a given point in the timeline. It's the Timeline Visualization function.
This first screenshot is an example with Timeline Visualization off. It shows a slide with 3 shapes. The shapes are all in the lower part of the slide. As the timeline shows, each shape would appear separately when the slide is played. But, during editing, the shapes overlap. And, yeah, that's a pain.
Now here's a screenshot of that same slide with Timeline Visualization on. The playhead is at the 4-second point. At that time, only the 1st shape is visible when the slide is previewed/published. And with Timeline Visualization on, that's the only shape that's visible in edit mode.
Note: This is a super-handy feature. Be careful, though. If you don't realize that Timeline Visualization is on, it's easy to panic about why some objects aren't showing, even though their eye-icons indicate they aren't hidden. (A variation of "Why can't I see my objects on the slide?" has been asked more than once in the discussion area.)
Thank you so much for this - solved!
